When all you really want...
...is to contemplate the perfection that was Jane Russell.
Personally, I never knew she went through a Rhonda Fleming phase, but I have to say she's making it work. Russell's someone who, while she might not have been the greatest actress in cinema history, did what she did pretty brilliantly and, at the same time, shows every likelihood of being a hoot over a cocktail (or seven).
On a cold Friday evening, with the shadows of winter drawing in, doesn't that seem a cozy notion?
She was gloriously entertaining, and a camp icon, and I adore her in so many of her roles. However, off-screen she was a terribly right-wing person and a god-botherer to boot, so the chat over cocktails might have been more, um, lively than one might expect. Jx
ReplyDeleteOh, yeah - she was loony as a tick on a lot of fronts, but I still think that if you caught her on the right night, at the right bar, you could have had a hell of a good time...
ReplyDeletewhat a skull!
ReplyDeleteQuell coinikydink! I was just talking (as one does) to my neighbor Charlie about the extraordinary chemistry the she and Mitchum had. We concluded that it was due to the fact that, while they had a total commitment to the picture at hand, they shared an underlying lack of desperate need for the whole Hollywood game. Unlike so many of their peers, they both knew that if the studio ever fired them, they'd be just fine doing something else. And it seems like that mutual "take it or leave it" attitude gave a subversive spark to their performances together.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing this was a shot for The Revolt of Mamie Stover where she was redheaded. I read her bio and the whole chanting in tongues thing and some other out there activities gave me pause but she and Robert Mitchum were friends for decades and heaven knows Bob was hardly one to suffer fools so I'm guessing when she relaxed and you keep away from certain topics she could be quite amusing.
ReplyDeleteJane was a very proper lady and she didn't do anything on screen that called to question her morals in real life. She was no loosey goosey, this one.
ReplyDeleteIf she never did another thing onscreen, the Ain't There Anyone Here for Love? number in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is enough to permanently cement her star in the cinematic heavens for me. Perfect in every way.
ReplyDeleteMiss Russell and Mr. Mitchum strolled past me, arm-in-arm, one enchanted evening many years ago. Hollywood royalty indeed!
ReplyDeleteDidn't she start out life as a dental office receptionist? I've wondered if her religiosity was a reaction to being leered at and pawed over thanks to her, um, assets.
ReplyDelete